1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to track pads. More particularly, the present invention relates to track pads capable of relative movement in order to increase the functionality of the track pad.
2. Background Art
There exist today many styles of input devices for performing operations in a consumer electronic device. The operations generally correspond to moving a cursor and making selections on a display screen. By way of example, the input devices may include buttons, switches, keyboards, mice, trackballs, touch pads, joy sticks, touch screens and the like. Each of these devices has advantages and disadvantages that are taken into account when designing the consumer electronic device. In handheld computing devices, the input devices are generally selected from buttons and switches. Buttons and switches are generally mechanical in nature and provide limited control with regards to the movement of a cursor (or other selector) and making selections. For example, they are generally dedicated to moving the cursor in a specific direction (e.g., arrow keys) or to making specific selections (e.g., enter, delete, number, etc.). In the case of hand-held personal digital assistants (PDA), the input devices tend to utilize touch-sensitive display screens. When using a touch screen, a user makes a selection on the display screen by pointing directly to objects on the screen using a stylus or finger.
In portable computing devices such as laptop computers, the input devices are commonly track pads (also known as touch pads). With a track pad, the movement of an input pointer (i.e., cursor) corresponds to the relative movements of the user's finger (or stylus) as the finger is moved along a surface of the track pad. Track pads can also make a selection on the display screen when one or more taps are detected on the surface of the track pad. In some cases, any portion of the track pad may be tapped, and in other cases a dedicated portion of the track pad may be tapped. In stationary devices such as desktop computers, the input devices are generally selected from mice and trackballs. With a mouse, the movement of the input pointer corresponds to the relative movements of the mouse as the user moves the mouse along a surface. With a trackball, the movement of the input pointer corresponds to the relative movements of a ball as the user rotates the ball within a housing. Both mice and trackballs generally include one or more buttons for making selections on the display screen.
In addition to allowing input pointer movements and selections with respect to a graphical user interface, or GUI, presented on a display screen, the input devices may also allow a user to scroll across the display screen in the horizontal or vertical directions. For example, mice may include a scroll wheel that allows a user to simply roll the scroll wheel forward or backward to perform a scroll action. In addition, track pads may provide dedicated active areas that implement scrolling when the user passes his or her finger linearly across the active area in the x and y directions. Both devices may also implement scrolling via horizontal and vertical scroll bars as part of the GUI. Using this technique, scrolling is implemented by positioning the input pointer over the desired scroll bar, selecting the desired scroll bar, and moving the scroll bar by moving the mouse or finger in the y direction (forwards and backwards) for vertical scrolling or in the x direction (left and right) for horizontal scrolling.